The endangered Hawaiian common gallinule (Gallinula chloropus sandvicensis) is an endemic Hawaiian waterbird that occurs only on O‘ahu and Kaua‘i. Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) supports the largest population of Hawaiian gallinule on either island and is also one of the highest producers of commercially grown taro in the state....
The Symbolic Probabilistic Inference (SPI) algorithm was developed by Bruce D' Ambrosio for efficient calculation of prior probabilities in belief nets [2]. Although the complexity of the SPI algorithm compares favorably with other approaches to probabilistic inference [5], its actual running time is still prohibitively long even for moderately sized...
In November 1990, Oregon voters approved Ballot Measure 5,
placing an ultimate ceiling on local property tax rates of 1.5% of
market value (excluding specific levies for capital expenditure). Any
resulting shortfalls in local education revenues are to be made up by
transfers from state funds, at the expense of...
Probabilistic inference using Bayesian networks is now a well-established approach for reasoning under uncertainty. Among many e ciency-driven tech- niques which have been developed, the Optimal Factoring Problem (OFP) is distinguished for presenting a combinatorial optimization point of view on the problem. The contribution of this thesis is to extend...
Ecosystems are facing increasing threats from human related activities, such as overfishing, pollution, habitat destruction, species invasions, and diseases, among others. While oceanic islands provide natural laboratories to understand ecological and evolutionary process, they are also particularly vulnerable to these impacts, given their usual isolation from the mainland and the...
The stability of a limpet-dominated community was
assessed in a experiment in which an consumer was
temporarily removed. Compared to unmanipulated plots,
the limpet-exclusion plots developed greater algal
abundance and altered species composition of both algae
and barnacles. The community was not perturbed beyond
its capacity to recover, since the...
Two different types of Phosphorodiamidate Morpholino Oligomers (PMOs) were used to
inhibit growth in pure cultures of Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium and in mouse
macrophages infected with S. typhimurium. Both PMOs were 11 bases long and
complementary to bases 6-16 of acyl carrier protein mRNA. A membrane-penetrating
peptide, (RXR)4XB, was...
Functional traits of vascular plants have been an important component of ecological studies for a number of years; however, in more recent times vascular plant ecologists have begun to formalize a set of key traits and universal system of trait measurement. Many recent studies hypothesize global generality of trait patterns,...
In recent years, our ecological knowledge of tropical dry forests has increased dramatically. However, whole components of the ecosystem, like lichenized fungi, remain mostly unknown. Crustose lichens in these forests are so abundant, that they are responsible for the characteristic appearance of a “white bark forest” during the dry season....